Dawn of the RACU

Chapter 5: Encountering the Past

The next day is the beginning of the childrens' week off, so Nychus decides to go to the forest again to search for more RACU parts he could use for his armor. While searching, he hears the faint sound of multiple pistons. A pack of RACU! Nychus follows the sound of the pistons for a few yards, then ducks under some bushes. Thirty yards, fifteen yards, five yards...

Several RACU dash past Nychus' field of vision. Nychus surveys each body he sees, furiously writing down notes in his journal: dark blue armor, medium build, fast... no corporation symbol, or name. Almost all the RACU in the area were manufactured by Nature Corp. Nychus wonders why these RACU don't have at least a Nature Corp. symbol -- a network of circuit lines converging towards the bottom to resemble a tree -- on the sides of their backs. A red eye envelopes his field of vision; one of the RACU spotted him! He falls back, and the other RACU stop running, heads up, alert from the movement behind them. They resemble wolves.

The wolf RACU that first spotted Nychus, probably the alpha, approaches him, causing Nychus to back up to keep the same distance between them. He has never been detected by a RACU before, and now he is trapped. A pack of RACU work as one unit, since the alpha can send signals to the other members' processors. If the alpha makes a move, the whole pack will kill him faster than any one RACU could ever attempt. The alpha continues to approach him, the rest of the pack forming a loose circle around him, cutting off Nychus' escape. Forced to stay where he is, Nychus watches as the alpha gets within his arm's reach of him, then bows its head. At the base of its neck, a small rectangular hole with a smaller rectangle inside it is revealed. Nychus stares at the hole; he doesn't know why, but the it seems familiar somehow.

Suddenly, a horn sounds in the distance. Nychus knows the sound: the RACU Horn, only blown when a RACU is going toward the colony at an unusually determined path. The colony is about to be attacked! He runs from the alpha towards the colony, dimly noticing that something is wrong: they are not following him. The pack just watches after him as he runs home.

Nychus reaches his house as the day turns to evening, the sun beginning to set. His mom is not there, understandably; she is be preparing to fight the RACU coming toward the colony. He wonders why he does not hear any pistons or tell-tale sounds of a RACU if the horn was blown... A thump, another, and another. Footsteps. Nychus realizes a giant RACU is coming towards the colony and goes into his bedroom. He gets a set of scrap armor: a prototype frame for his Defender armor. Currently, it is only made for protection. After securing his armor, Nychus runs at full speed towards the Central Complex, stragglers from the RACU Horn's first call joining him along the path. As they all get closer to the Central Complex, Nychus stops and joins the older trainees in ushering the civilians into the Complex. However, as the other trainees get into the Complex, a deep rumbling shakes the ground and reverberates inside Nychus' chest, as the RACU crashes into the colony, crushing houses underneath it's two giant, three-toed feet. He stands in shock at the gigantic machine at the edge of the colony. It stands at least 15 feet tall, with a gigantic maw, smooth black armor with silver highlights, two three-feet forelimbs ending in what look to be two-fingered hands, and a long reinforced tail.

All the Defenders, which had settled into an ambush position in preparation of the RACU's entrance, jump out from behind the adjacent houses and gather around the machine, throwing steel chains over its back and around its legs to subdue it. With just a few sweeps of the RACU's tail, the chains break as if they were twigs, and the machine is free. It rampages, moving further into the colony as Defenders begin slashing at its legs and shooting electrified arrows at its body. However, none of the attacks made against the RACU seem to affect it; the strikes bounce harmlessly off the metal. The RACU's armor must be made of titanium and reinforced by inner layers of armor. The Defenders up close quickly perish, as they are either stomped underfoot by the RACU or devoured by the huge mouth, full of teeth and inner sawblades, shredding the armor and bodies of the Defenders trapped within its jaws. The defenders at range are first knocked halfway across the colony by the RACU's powerful tail and killed upon landing, then chomped or stomped down once the RACU gets near enough to them. Not even 10 minutes since the machine rampaged into the colony, nearly all the current Defenders are dead; Victoria orders a few of the close-quarters and ranged Defenders alike to retreat, so there would still be some Defenders after this RACU is repelled. With its armor, it cannot be killed easily, if at all. Victoria wears a grim expression on her face, after watching so many of her colony's forces lose their lives with nothing to show for it. Something flashes in her eyes, and her expression hardens.